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What does Independence Day mean to you? The holiday can be a time to gather with family, friends and community. But it can also be an opportunity to reassess the direction of the country, the past struggles that secured rights and freedom, the challenges to power that rose up in the face of adversity, and the inequalities that still exist.

A coalition of open Internet advocates unveiled a “Declaration of Internet Freedom” this week, seeking to rally activists against censorship and privacy violations from both governments and corporations. The Declaration comes as a Manhattan Judge ordered Twitter to turn over months of personal data from an Occupy Wall Street protester, arrested during last fall's mass demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge. Both Google and Twitter released reports this month showing the US government requested more private user data than any other country in the world, and the companies largely complied. FSRN’s Alice Ollstein has more.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the President’s Affordable Care Act can go forward almost unchanged, except that state Medicaid expansion is now optional instead of mandatory. Though Democrats, women’s health advocates and progressive groups celebrated the decision, others say defending the Health Care Reform bill isn’t enough, and are calling for a universal, single payer system. FSRN's Alice Ollstein was outside the Supreme Court this morning, and files this report.

Dennis Trainor, Jr., has produced a full-length movie of the Occupy movement, and he's done a hell of a great job.

The Occupy movement was created, as are all movements in the United States, in large part by the corporate media. They didn't understand it. They didn't want it. They didn't originate it or take part in it or develop its brilliants insights, effective techniques, or inspiring courage. They transmitted what to them was an indecipherable code that reached their viewers and readers with the obvious clarity of a crack on the head. They got huge assists from brutal cops and incompetent mayors. But it was the corporate media that took something in one city and made it big and made it national.

Then, as always, the corporate media turned hostile and lost interest and went away.

​Brooklyn, NYC - On Tuesday, June 26 2012, American Autumn: an Occudoc, a feature length documentary on the occupy movement written, produced and directed by Dennis Trainor Jr will launch with a world premiere and party at the Indie Screen Cinema and Bar in Williamsburg Brooklyn (289 Kent Ave).

The evening will begin with a live performance by comedian Lee Camp (“the Che Guevara of comedy” – Paul Provenza) and a celebration featuring the live music of the Goldishack Guerrillas will take place in the venue after the screening.

The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 7PM and the first 50 people get a free American Autumn dvd and a free copy of Lee Camp’s new comedy CD PepperSpray the Tears Away.

A popular refrain that one hears when talking about the troops is that they fight, kill, and get killed, maim and get maimed so that we can enjoy our freedom here at home. The troops make the ultimate sacrifice so that we can be free.

Does anyone with even a partially functioning frontal lobe and a sliver of conscience believe this bunk?

If veteran community organizations and the Occupy movement can combine their strengths, “you have the beginnings of the makings of the movement that many of us have been longing to see,” said Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate. McKinney is engaged in a nationwide Build People’s Power Tour. She said community groups have “experience and some expertise” while Occupy brings “youth and vitality and fresh ideas” to the table.

POP Marks May Day in Home Stretch of Daily Newark Demos

The People’s Organization for Progress marked its 310th day of daily demonstrations on May Day, just 71 days short of its goal to match the longevity of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. The campaign for jobs, housing, education, justice and peace, which has been endorsed by 175 community organizations, “has strengthened and disciplined our organization,” said POP chairman Larry Hamm. “We’ have an impact.”

U.S. Moving in “Fascist Direction”

“We need to build an anti-war movement that is also an anti-bankster, anti-plutocrat, anti-injustice movement – as it is all connected – and to push it hard on our representatives before it’s too late,” said David Swanson, publisher of the influential web site War Is A Crime. “Our country is moving in a dangerously fascistic direction and, at some point, fear may become overpowering.”

Protest and Mumia’s Birthday at Justice Department

“Why is George Zimmerman walking the streets and Mumia isn’t walking the streets?” said Monica Morehead, of the International Action Center, at the Occupy the Justice Department demonstration. April 24 was also political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal’s 58th birthday. “We want de-carceration, and the destruction of the mass incarceration complex,” said Jamal, in a recorded message. Fellow political prisoners Sekou Odinga, 67 years old, and Mutulu Shakur, 61, sent birthday greetings to Mumia. Public Enemy’s Chuck D told the crowd, “two and a half million people are incarcerated, but they’ve built facilities to hold five to seven million in the next ten years.”

'Sometimes You Have to Take Life to Save Lives'

It’s no real secret that the Obama Administration’s ever escalating drone war has killed a massive lot of innocent people, but White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan was surprisingly glib today when pressed on the matter in an interview with ABC’s “This Week.”

Brennan went on to defend the killings, saying “sometimes you have to take life to save lives.” He provided no examples of how the killing of nearly 2,000 people, virtually all of them unidentified, had “saved lives.”

This week on CounterSpin: You've heard the gas industry PR—their ads are all over television and public radio. And the message—that gas drilling is a safe, affordable path to energy independence—is being echoed by some pundits. Anti-fracking activists sure think otherwise, and they're challenging the media-industry line. We'll talk about this with Brendan deMelle of DeSmog Blog.

Also on CounterSpin today, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has a new book taking a critical look at U.S. military power. But how critical? And what lessons can we draw about exactly what kind of critique the corporate media will allow? Author and peace activist David Swanson will join us to talk about that.

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